Yeah it's bad news to do it right. Rear quarter glass out, all quarter moldings, stone guard, paint quarter, etc. I don't want a tape line anywhere. This car is as nice as any I have ever seen. We bought it new and now it has been violated. I gotta fix it right.

Steve

yea i didnt know it was that bad. How much does the quarter panel cost? The good thing is that that can be a good excuse for fiberglass panels.

Sounds like a good exuse to go fiberglass widebody rear panels. I have seen a car on ebay with "widebody" fenders. I'm not sure but I think its a GT-Racing thing. They have front fenders too that are supposed to go wiht it but it would be unique if you just put wide read quarters on it (I think it adds an inch or two on each side).

Anyways...
Thats not as bad as I was thinking it would be but any dent is expensive. How long will it take to fix?

I gotta stay w/ the stock metal. I just like the look the way it is now w/ the Fiberwerks front and back. I definately would not buy a GT part for a street car. I tried it w/ their headlight conversion and it was the cheeziest POS I have ever seen. Their response is "it's not meant for a street car, and modification is required". Forget that. I wound up selling it to a guy for $25 including freight. I am looking at getting it into the shop on 07-17 and it will take that whole week for sure. They are painteless dent removing a few dings while it's there and also putting in a new windshield. With any luck I should have everything done in time to put it away again for the winter. Guess while it's down I'll source out a 951 tranny and LSD.

Steve

New windsheild - just because?

Also... if you're thinking about a new tranny why not look into a 6 speed 968 tranny? It would be able to take the horsepower you're going to throw at it since the 968's were making that king of horsepower anyways. And its always nice to have that extra gear....

Windshield has a star right in front of my eyes when driving and 22 years of little tiny chips.

Steve

Used, abused, and frustrated
 

Well I guess I have to face the fact that x3m944 may have ripped me off. I'm not real bright, and obviously a slow trusting learner as I have had $3295 out of pocket since Feb 6. I have emails promissing delivery on April 15th, May 1, May 30, June 15, July 1 and to date I have received 2 cheap guages (one of which was wrong and I had to replace it at my expense) and a MAF conversion kit w/ no instructions or wiring. Oh yeah, I do have a few emails blasting me for not understanding he is a "veteran who fought for me, a Christian who would never do anything like this, a guy w/ health problems" etc. All I know is I don't have my money or my product, and I have lost basicly an entire year of my spare time. What started out as a fun rewarding project has turned into a very frustrating experience. I have a totally pissed off wife (at me for being too trusting), A car set up to have an SC that apparantly is not coming, $15K thrown into a hole, and some guy laughing all the way to the bank with my money all the while trying to make me feel sorry for him. I have contacted several ebay people who are also less than thrilled and am going to proceed with turning the whole mess over to Postal Inspectors unless I have the remaining pieces in hand by July 17th when it gets back from the body shop. I guess my kindness has been mistaken for weakness, bad assumption. It still amazes me that someone does not realize that if I can just piss away $20K on a toy I must have something going on for myself. This was not genetic money, I earned it as a relatively decent engineer and businessman. Hopefully my experience will alert others to this vendor. I do thank all of you that have helped me to this point and maybe I'll get motivated again this winter to do something with the car. It has been a lot of fun researching and implementing various aspects of the project. For now it just pisses me off looking at it. I am going to take it out to our farm and put it in a barn under cover and devote time to other things. My family deserves more time, an old car means nothing in comparison.

I will be following your progress closely CJ as I may decide to do a turbo.

BTW I picked up a Cosworth 190e 5-speed impulsively last week and so it will have to do for a while. I finally decided 1 M3 was enough. I have never owned a Benz and it seemed like a grandfatherly looking car. It's actually pretty cool, not as fast as I would like but definately solid and surprisingly good handling w/ the AMG stuff.

Hopefully all of you wil be smarter than me and realize that just because someone is a self professed "genious" you do your homework prior to letting go of your hard earned cash. This has been a humbling experience.

Steve

84 944
98 M3
93 M/B 190
00 Durango
06 Aprilia
91 C4
02 Grandbaby

I just checked my emails and 4 ebay members have responded with essentially the same stories. One is going through Paypal now to get money refunded for product not received, 3 finally received items after anywhere from 3-4 months. Guess they are the lucky ones.

Steve

Steve has been keeping me updated on this for months, and I have to admit that this whole situation saddens me deeply, not least of all because x3m944 seemed genuinely willing to help... and I came somewhat close to handing him some of my money as well.

Steve is an incredibly generous and trusting person (it's not a fault, even if some bad eggs do take advantage of the fact), and the idea that West came onto this forum, posted lonnnnnnng, informative threads about forced induciton just to rip someone like him off... it's frustrating. It's frustrating because it makes it hard to trust people; at least we have people like Steve to offset the x3ms of the world.

What I feel really bad about in all this is that I somewhat vouched for x3m944. West and I had long discussions about supercharging and turbocharging, and those discussions eventually convinced me that I shouldn't be afraid to take on a project like my current 951 engine that is being built in the garage. West seemed happy to help, and patiently explained that whenever I was ready, he could supply me with the hardware I needed. When Steve asked my opinion of West, I told him my honest opinion, that the guy seems to be on the up-and-up, that he was helpful and appeared to be the genuine product.

I was wrong. I admit it.

I know that Steve was simply asking my opinion, and the decision was his in the end, but I can't help but feel partly responsible for this. And even after my bad advice, Steve continues to be generous toward me! Talk about a good person.

I really, really hope that everything works out, and that you get at least some of your money refunded, Steve. I also hope your project gets finished and done well. Good karma is bound to come your way again soon.

-CJF

CJ

Good Karma comes my way every day. I got to spend all day watersking and hanging out on our boat w/ my wife, son, and granddaughter. Tomorrow I have a couple guys I went to college with in the 70's that still work @ Boeing coming over with their families to hang out, swim, and BBQ. I still have a heartbeat and an occasional hardon. Karma doesn't get much better than that my friend. You were only asked by me if you were familiar w/ West and you responded with the information you had at your disposal. This has nothing to do with you or anyone else besides the man that has not produced. It just saddens me that in these times you can no longer do a deal on somewhat of a handshake w/o havng to count your fingers later, my wife, who is an accountant by training constantly reminds me of this. Hopefully West is indeed what he professes to be and not just another blow hard scam artist. I will be thrilled to post how wrong I was. I also have no choice but to pursue other means of recourse. Unfortunately Florida laws are not conducive to collection even if a civil judgement is ordered. My brother is a fairly prominant attorney here and basicly told me I was pissing up a rope to go civil. Criminal is another matter. The FBI internet fraud division as well as US Postal Inspectors have jurisdiction in a matter such as this where wire fraud is suspected. I was @ a Cardinal's game Tuesday (another loss to an AL team) with my brother and a Federal prosecuting attorney for the Eastern District based here in St Louis and he advised me off the record which way to go and has given me the name of who I should talk to along with his card. I just find this type of recourse extremely distasteful and really nobody wins. I have however put the wheels in motion as I have no choice. It is more than the money, it is also principle.

Steve

wow! i have been dealing with the same guy. i bought a fiberwerks product from him and he told me it had to be made. so i said ok, and went on. days later he said that he was having problems with paypal (i payed him via paypal) and that he had to give me a refund, and then i would have to pay fiberwerks directly. so it seemed like 2 days or so went by and then i got my refund. but it just seemed like a really weird situation. i haven't contacted fiberwerks regarding the item, but now i am vary wary of dealing with him.

Hey Karl @ Fiberwerks is definately a very straight up guy. I can't sat enough good things about him. Call him directly.

Steve

It's not this guy is it. I actualy saw this earlier and didnt wana say anthing as i didn't know what the update on the Supercharger was but Here was one that was for sell. Just ended.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=160002033461&ih =006&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT

Different guy

Supercharging of Knoxville
Knoxville, TN
Supercharger kits. No website, call (423) 842-9556.
That ebay auction was for their older 944 Kit.

I followed a lot of the problems over on another board (924.org - search hausbrauen or esc944) and it seems his business has been plagued with some problems, that from what I read arent attributed to him. I dont know the story, but some people sure seem to go to bat for him, but not his partner. Very strange.

I hope he pulls the rabbit out of the hat and takes care of this mess, he seems to be doing quite a bit of that, check 924.org. In anycase I am a fan of the product, I hope it comes out ok in the end. One guy has a supercharger on his 924 and another a turbo kit that these guys supplied.

I am also interested in supercharging my '84 N/A. What will you use for a power harness? What about A/F mixture under boost? Are you deleting your A/C? Hope you get through your troubles, but dont dont worry something bad will happen to that deadbeat.
Have a happy 4th 'O July!

If things arrive as promissed:

MAF hot wire conversion, 2 extra injectors in a hard pipe before the throttle body w/ controller tied into the factory harness, new alternator with a longer shaft off the back spinning the SC, pop off valve, adjustable wastegate limited to 6PSI (at least for now). I have replaced pretty much everything else already. ie: new injectors, 951 head gasket, valve job (totally unnecessary), belts, hoses, headers, etc. It's actually fairly basic, I just gotta get it here. I did quite a bit of research prior to starting the project and the design looks good.

I really think that a lot of failures people encounter are due to abused or simply worn out parts being subjected to additional stress. This car has 72K on it and my wife and I are the only people that have ever driven it. I will probably still keep my eyes open for a deal on a 951 tranny and LSD just to have them around. I did just put in a new clutch kit.

If the items do not arrive and I have to pursue legal recourse I will probably go ahead with a Speedforce kit, convert to maunal steering, and move the A/C to that side. My A/C compressor is shot so I am holding off on replacing it until the current situation is resolved.

I really hope for my sake and also the vendors that there have just been unforseen problems. I think most people would have blown a gasket by now. I get really pissed then approach things rationally for resolution. I am passed the pissed stage and simply will either have the items promissed when the car gets back from the body shop on July 17th or I will wash my hands of it and pursue other means of recourse which I realize will probably cost me more money. I am stubborn enough that I don't care about the good money after bad if I have been ripped off. I will use whatever means I have at my disposal to ensure I am the last one that gets ripped off. The wheels have already been set in motion as if I do have to go that route I want to be able to act relatively quickly. The wheels can always be stopped by me with a couple phone calls.

It sure would have been cheaper to buy a 951 like everybody suggested. Oh well, I still have faith that I will be posting how it was worth the headaches and delays. I am sure glad this isn't my sole means of transportation. Anyone going into this type of thing needs to realize they better have a driver and a place to let the vehicle sit idle as it ain't happening overnight.

Steve

Heh, not EVERYBODY suggested buying a 951! SmileWavy What's the fun in that ;)

Thanks CJ. Oh yeah, you should be receiving a package in the mail on Monday.

Steve

Man, this is a depressing read. Sorry to hear about all the trouble you are having! I hope they nail his butt to the wall...